Here are some steps you can take right now in your own garden/yard/land to build an Ark! Visit our How To Build An Ark section for even more details for each step.
Step 1. Give at least half of your garden or land back to nature. If not half, as much as you can manage. Try to grow as much of your own organic food as possible in the other half.
Step 2. Put up a sign saying "THIS IS AN ARK - WWW.WEARETHEARK.ORG" . This simple action removes the shame that people feel about having a messy garden, and replaces it with pride that you're doing something important to help all of the creatures we are supposed to share the planet with. The website is set up to explain to people what is happening there on your Ark and why it is necessary.
Step 3. Try to remove any 'Invasive plants'. This is difficult on a large scale but on our individual patches of earth, we can manage it easily enough by hand. There is NO place for chemicals in an ark, they cause many more problems than they solve and are very destructive to life on all levels. Slug pellets are killing the birds and hedgehogs who eat poisoned slugs for example... there is always a knock on effect.
Step 4. Leave your lawns grow wild and just mow a path through it if required. If your lawn is a thick sward of grass, then maybe consider scraping away the grass and allowing the native weed seed bank have a chance to emerge. If your land is damaged or devoid of growth, sow a wildflower meadow. Only use local native wildflower seeds as these are vital genetic material for the local insect populations. This will reboot the ecosystem.
Step 5. A sand bank, a pile of rotting log and twigs and a small pond will be a great support to wildlife.
Step 6. Allow deadwood to stay where it is unless it is dangerous. A living oak tree will support over 500 different species of life, a standing dead oak tree will support thousands! Death is a vital part of life.
Step 7. Get together with like minded folk and go to your councils and estate management committees and ask for support to turn more and more park and public land into Arks. The signs will support the goodwill to leave land be untidy and messed. Allow as much land as possible to burst into life, a messy thicket of native plants and other life forms will gradually develop and create an Ark for as many creatures as we can save.
What Can One Person Do To Make A Difference?
For those of us that care about the living world around us and are aware of the challenges we all face, this is a painful and desperate time – but there is hope. We have waited too long for changes to come from our leaders and politicians. We cannot wait any longer. The change will come from the ground up – it will come from us.
To all of us who are lucky enough to have land and water under our care, this is a call to step up and re assess our management of those patches of the earth. We need to help and not hinder. We have to invite nature and wildness back into our gardens and parks and create sanctuary, food and habitat for the creatures we are supposed to share this planet with and who in return will help us survive here within a truly natural and beautiful environment.
It’s up to each of us to re-wild our world, piece by piece until we have a patchwork of oases and sanctuaries that wraps its way around the globe.
We Are The Ark. We Hold The Seeds For A New Earth.
Things are only hopeless if we do nothing, so let’s do something!
Let’s build an Ark.
Start An ARK at Home
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